I Can Only Hear the Screaming
by QueenY C
Summary: It's dark in his mind. They make it dark, those cloaked demons. They bring back all the bad memories. PG for some mild language. A one shot.


It's dark again. It's getting dark earlier lately. It must be winter. I can feel the cold through the iron bars. I can feel the snow and...and maybe one day I'll see it again. I've forgotten what snow looks like, I've forgotten the feel of it under my feet. I think I must've had good memories once of snow...of snowball fights in the bitter cold, or ice skating on the lake at Hogwarts with my friends, maybe one day I'll find those memories too. Maybe one day I'll not hear the screams of my sister as she drowned in an icy lake and I was forced to watch and do nothing. Maybe...no...definitely...surely one day I'll escape. I'm innocent after all. I'm innocent and I will get out of here...or die trying.  
  
Damn this prison with its stone walls and cloaked demons, damn its haunted memories and the agonizing screams in the night. Damn all of it! I'm Sirius Black. I'm a marauder. There's no punishment I can't escape. None but this...sad really, that of all my sins I should be punished for the one I did not commit, sad that I should die in the ache of my own unbearable memories.  
  
It would almost be bearable to relive them if it wasn't always the same ones. James...James was my best friend and my brother. He was my comrade in arms. He was...he was my family, him and Lily. And Harry. I loved that kid like I would my own...if I'd ever gotten the chance to have my own. Why? Why, oh God why them? Why the people I loved most? Why did they have to suffer! They deserved a life so much fuller than what they were given! Harry deserved to have a family to love and cherish him. To teach him magic and how to ride his first broom. I should be there. James...James should be there. He shouldn't have to be alone. Loneliness is what got me here in the end.  
  
Alone. I was alone. Completely and utterly alone and unloved. My parents hated me. I wasn't a proper Black. Even before I made friends with a muggle- born and a werewolf, I wasn't a proper Black. Even James, whose family was one of the wealthiest Wizarding families known, wasn't a good friend for a Black to make. Of course, I suppose it didn't help that I was placed in Slytherin. My parents couldn't bear the thought of a Black being in Gryffindor, or of a Black having 'mudblood' friends. How I hated them? How I strived for so many wasted years to be a 'proper Black'. James saved me from that. And now I've gotten him killed...NO! It wasn't my fault! I didn't kill him it was Peter! I...I...I would never hurt James and Lily...never.  
  
Peter...that RAT! I live here in my own private hell because of him! He was my friend. He was like a brother to me...we all were brothers, if not in blood than in heart. We were brothers and I was thrown to the wolves. He threw me to the wolves...  
  
Remus was a wolf...well...a werewolf. A 'monster' some called him. He was no monster. He was my brother. He was my friend, one of my closest friends...he's still alive. He's the last true marauder. Peter is dead, the rat! I'm an innocent man who is slowly loosing himself in bad memories. James...James is gone now, so is my dear Lillikins...God I loved that girl. She was so much like Halley that sometimes the lines blurred. Sometimes I couldn't remember that she was Lily Evans, my best friend's soul mate, and not Halley Black, my dead baby sister.  
  
Of course, Halley has been gone for a long time. She's long dead. Since my third year...her first. She never even got to graduate. I...I never got to watch my baby sister grow into a woman. I...I couldn't protect her...it was my job as her older brother and I couldn't protect her when she needed me most. I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't stop them when they grabbed her, an innocent eleven year-old child, and held her under the icy lake until she stopped moving. I tried! I swear I tried! I loved her, I would've saved her if I could've but...but they were strong and seventeen and I was weak and only thirteen...I couldn't do more than yell. I couldn't do more than beg for them to show her mercy...to take me instead...I couldn't protect her. When she needed me most I wasn't there...just like I wasn't there for James and Lily.  
  
I should've known that it would happen. I should've stayed with them at all times. We knew what danger they were in. We all knew. Why wasn't I there? Why can't I be there when it counts? Why can't I help the people I love when they need me most? Why?  
  
I tried once to remember something good. I could almost catch a glimpse of it before it faded away. It was like trying to remember a dream as it faded from your mind...like trying to hold sand as it sifted through your fingers or holding water in glass filled with holes. It was almost there. If I try hard enough I can almost find it again. Its...its dark...but there are stars and...and a half moon. There's somebody standing beside me...a girl I think. I can't find her name but it's there somewhere I'm sure. Her hair is...is blonde and she's saying something. She has a beautiful smile and...dimples and shining clear blue eyes. I think she loved me then...I doubt she could love the murderer Sirius Black...but then...we were children then and I think she loved me. But...but the memory fades there. I can't find her anymore. I can't see the stars shining in her eyes. I can't hear those whispered words that I long for. I can only hear the screams now. The screams are always there. 


End file.
